Member Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Experience

David has worked in professional and executive roles in the public and not for profit sectors in the Northern Territory since 1981. For more than 20 years he held the position of chief executive. This role included:

Department of Lands and Planning and Northern Territory Land Development Corporation (2009-2012)

Department of Housing, Local Government and Sport (2008-2009)

Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts (2005-2008)

Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (1990-2003).

Other executive roles include Director of Parks and Wildlife and Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment Natural Resource Management Division Executive Director (2003-2005).

David also worked in professional roles as an anthropologist in statutory bodies responsible for administering the Northern Territory's Indigenous cultural heritage and land rights laws including the Northern Land Council, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Aboriginal Sacred Sites Authority.

1999: Constructions of Aboriginal Tradition for Public Purposes. Applied Anthropology in Australasia. S Toussaint. Ed. Perth, University of Western Australia Press

1999: A Painful Wrench for a European Mind: Land Claims and Representations of History and Aboriginal Tradition in the Darwin Hinterland (PhD thesis Deakin University)

1996: Australian Heritage Protection Laws: An Overview and Model for National Legislation. Heritage and native title: anthropological and legal perspectives. J Finlayson and A Jackson-Nakano Eds. Canberra, Native Title Research Unit, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies